RICOCHET

Chapter 3- SOMETHING BELOW YOU

He'd only been home an hour at this point, but it felt like he'd been here forever, like always, now that the house was full of his silent warmth again.

Or at least something that replicated it.

The house was always emptier without SUNNY, slightly more echoey, and lonely.

But now that he was back, was it really all that better? MARI couldn't decide in her hazy delusion that had been shattered so viciously by his return.

Still, despite that, she was alone in the big, cruel house once again.

Sitting on the stairs, she traced the shallow lines that splintered across her palm as she waited for him to come back. Part of her didn't expect him to. It was like her older brother was ghost, an apparition that had come to haunt and torment her again until it grew bored of her and moved on again, leaving her in isolation.

"MARI?"
At the sickly sound of his voice, goosebumps began to protrude outwards through her skin as her head turned quickly to it, like a moth to a flame.

There he stood- the SUNNY she had gotten to know for the past four years.

"Come on. We haven't finished the drawing yet, and it's getting dark. We want to get it done before dinner, don't we?"

MARI swallowed a large lump that had manifested itself in her throat as she stood up and followed him up the stairs. Into their room.

The SUNNY MARI had made for herself had always given her a feeling of empty comfort. Something made to fill the SUNNY-sized hole in her heart until he came back for her.

Or until he left forever.

MARI gulped. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. That was a positive she could take from this situation, wasn't it? There always had to be a silver lining, a bright side to an otherwise dark and miserable cloud.

The large, colourful drawing sprawled across the space on the floorboards of their room, not yet finished but still beautiful in its own, aloof way.

MARI and SUNNY had taken a side of the massive sheet of paper each, MARI the right and SUNNY the left. MARI felt a pang of jealousy as she compared the two sides: one messy and basic despite maximum effort, and the other carelessly breath-taking, with delicate strokes of soft and controlled colour that exploded pleasantly in your eyes.

SUNNY was drawing them: SUNNY, MARI and MEWO. One happy family.

Meanwhile, MARI was still trying to get the face of the cat she was drawing correct. But it seemed that every time she tried to refine it, it got worse. As she carved the crayon even deeper into the paper, she could feel the frustration hanging over her once again. SUNNY seemed to notice.

"Hey now, MARI. Don't get like that. Here," he said, coming closer to her and taking her drawing hand in his. "You just have to go with it, whichever direction it goes. That makes it flow naturally," He explained as he moved the crayon across the page, drawing a new cat as an example. "You see? No fixing needed. It looks fine as is."

"That's easy for you to say," MARI mumbled as SUNNY moved back to colouring in his hair. "You're perfect."

Then, she heard the slam of the front door downstairs. She turned her head impulsively, knowing who it was but having forgotten in that haze of drawing with SUNNY.

He didn't call her downstairs, like her SUNNY did. Instead, he simply wheeled himself into the kitchen and began making dinner, whatever it was.

SUNNY had gone out grocery shopping, because the fridge had apparently been empty. MARI still felt guilty for not joining her older brother on his shopping expedition: how was he going to wheel himself all the way to OTHERMART and back? But he never asked, and so she never offered.